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Bibliotheca Missionum: A Case of Benign Neglect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

David Henige
David Henige*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

“[The historian] ignores this … impeccable bibliography at his (or her) peril.”

In this brief note I hope to draw effective attention to Bibliotheca Missionum, a bibliography which, in its scope, reliability, and accessibility stands unequalled among bibliographies of any kind. More important, though, than its superior technical attributes is the fact that Bibliotheca Missionum provides entrée to a vast but largely dormant body of source materials -- materials which are as little used as they are indispensable to the proper study of the African past. With all fairness, it can be said that Bibliotheca Missionum's superiority is rivaled only by our disregard of it.

Bibliotheca Missionum was conceived by Robert Streit, a missionary of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The first volume in the series appeared in 1917 and since then twenty-nine others have appeared. Initially the volumes appeared more or less under the auspices of the Oblates, but in the late 1920s the project was taken over by the newly-established Pontificia Biblioteca Missionaria in Rome. Streit was succeeded by Johannes Dindinger in 1930 and other Editors have since held office, but Bibliotheca Missionum continues to be referred to as “Streit and Dindinger.” Of the thirty volumes so far published, six (volumes 15 to 20) relate directly to Africa. All were published between 1951 and 1954 and include the following:

In addition, Vols. 1, 22, and 23 are devoted to work of general missiological import and naturally contain much that relates to Africa.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 5 , 1978 , pp. 337 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1978

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References

NOTES

1. Boxer, Charles R.The Portuguese Seaborne Empire (London, 1969), p. 394.Google Scholar

2. For Streit's work see Pietsch, Johannes, P. Robert Streit O.M.I. Ein Pionier der katholischen Missionswissenschaft [Schriftenreihe der Neuen Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, XI] (Schöneck-Beckenried, 1952).Google Scholar

3. Metzler, J., “The Pontifical Missionary Library ‘De Propaganda Fide’,” in De Arahivis et Bibliothecis Missionibus atque Scientiae Missionum Inservientibus [Euntes Docete, 21 (Rome, 1968), pp. 347–60.Google Scholar

4. Johannes Beckmann, “Werden, Wachsen und Bedeutung der Bibliotheca Missionum” in ibid, pp. 33-57.

5. I have added the standard rubrics adopted by the Catholic Church to distinguish one similarly named order from another.

6. Most of the missionary organs published several regional editions and often the same letter would be printed in two or more of these. The practice varied among orders and over time, but it should be borne in mind that the totals I cite here will usually include a certain amount of duplication.

7. Hofmayr, Schilluk, title page and iii-iv. See, for example, Evans-Pritchard, E.E., The Divine Kingship of the Shilluk of the Nilotic Sudan (Cambridge, 1948), p. 2.Google Scholar

8. E.g., MacGaffey, Wyatt, Custom and Government in the Lower Congo (Berkeley, 1970)Google Scholar; Janzen, John M. and MacGaffey, Wyatt, An Anthology of Kongo Religion (Lawrence, Kansas, 1975).Google Scholar

9. For the work of Labrècque and fellow White Father missionaries see Roberts, Andrew D., A History of the Bemba (London, 1973), esp. pp. 8–11.Google Scholar Roberts' work is one of the few dealing with African societies in the pre-colonial period which uses missionary materials extensively.

10. Boxer, , Portuguese Seaborne Empire, p. 394.Google Scholar

11. Two examples (not, I hope, invidiously chosen) may be cited. Soremekun's, Fola “The Bailundu Revolt of 1902,” African Social Research, no. 16 (1973), pp. 447–73Google Scholar, relies heavily on ABCFM and Canadian Congregational Foreign Missions sources but could have benefited from using the extensive Holy Ghost materials, while Bustin's, EdouardLunda under Belgian Rule (Cambridge, Mass., 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar fails to use a single missionary source directly, which seems a grievous deficiency indeed.

12. “[Jiaoji Tupou of Tonga] est d'une intelligence et d'un caractère supérieurs, du moins par comparaison avec tous les hommes de sa race.” Elloy, Louis-André, “[Rapport sur] les Vicariats Apostoliques de l'Océanie centrale et de l'Archipel des Navigateurs,” Les Missions Catholiques, 10(1878), p. 296.Google Scholar